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| Peter Paul Rubens A Roman Triumph, after Mantegna ca. 1630 National Gallery, London |
On the Numerous Access of the English to Wait upon the King in Flanders
Hasten, great Prince, unto thy British Isles,
Or all thy subjects will become exiles:
To thee they flock, thy presence is their home,
As Pompey's camp, where'er it moved, was Rome.
They that asserted thy just cause go hence,
To testify their joy and reverence;
And they that did not, now, by wonder taught,
Go to confess and expiate their fault;
So that if thou dost stay, thy gasping land
Itself will empty on the Belgic sand . . .
– Katherine Philips (1632-1664)
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| Anthony van Dyck Continence of Scipio ca. 1620-21 Christchurch Picture Gallery, Oxford |
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| Anthony van Dyck and workshop Diana, Nymph, and Satyr ca. 1625 Prado |
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| Anthony van Dyck after Titian Entombment early 17th century drawing British Museum |
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| Anthony van Dyck Portrait of Hendrick van Balen ca. 1627-32 drawing Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Anthony van Dyck Portrait of Sebastian Vrancx ca. 1627-35 drawing British Museum |
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| Anthony van Dyck Study of Trees 1630s drawing British Museum |
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| Joos de Momper the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder Flemish Parkland 17th century Prado |
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| Joos de Momper the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder Haymaking early 17th century Prado |
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| Joos de Momper the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder Landscape ca. 1600 Prado |
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| Joos de Momper the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder Country Life ca. 1620-22 Prado |
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| Joos de Momper the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder Flemish Market ca. 1620 Prado |
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| Joos de Momper the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder Winter Landscape ca. 1615-25 Prado |
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| Livio Mehus The Genius of Painting ca. 1650 Prado |
"Poverty, according to the ancient proverb, prompted the invention of those practical arts whose perfection would defeat her. Painting's origin, on the other hand, lay in a different kind of lack. Not material necessity but the desire to possess an image of one's beautiful beloved called painting into being, whether in Narcissus' embrace of his own image as Alberti had it, or in the ancient potter's daughter's outlining of her lover's shadow as described by Pliny. Alberti's preferred myth of origin required that Narcissus' perfect likeness be painted by love, in a process that destroys both the subject and the beholder-creator, both the beautiful beloved and the lover (even as the reverse success of a Pygmalion destroys the work of art)."
– Elizabeth Cropper and Charles Dempsey, from Nicolas Poussin : Friendship and the Love of Painting (Princeton University Press, 1996)